


Nothing I Say Can Make you Mine

by musiclily88



Series: Wasted Youth// There Wasn't Much to Waste [19]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Anxiety Disorder, Depression, Drug Use, Existential Angst, Gay, Gen, Hangover, Light BDSM, M/M, Medication, Mental Health Issues, Psychology, Recreational Drug Use, Tattoos, Therapy, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 16:01:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musiclily88/pseuds/musiclily88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pressing one finger against his blackened eye, he bit the inside of his cheek.</p>
<p>He was fine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing I Say Can Make you Mine

**Author's Note:**

> angsty as a motherfucker

Louis downed two bottles of wine and a handful of barbiturates as soon as he got back to his house, wanting at every moment to fall asleep and never wake up.

But he did wake up, the way his body always did. Night had fallen sometime while he was near-comatose, and the room was dark.

He had clung to his mobile in his sleep, woke with a sweaty, cramped hand. He turned onto his back and sat his phone on his sternum. Staring at the high-off ceiling, he whined when his phone vibrated repeatedly.

Glancing at the screen, he rolled his eyes at Liam’s inability to punctuate or spell properly.

_we fiiiiite too much_

_i don’t like it when we fight_

_did u leave school again_ he had sent during the day, after Louis had finished heaving and gagging long enough to drive himself home.

_pleeeese don’t get kicked out again it would suk not to have you heeeere_

and

_I know you’re ignoring me rite now which is fine but I hope you read these ne way_ came later in the afternoon, while Louis had still been asleep.

But the ones that hit Louis the hardest were the three most recent ones.

_I don’t want to fight_

and

_no one ever loves me back._

and

_it hurts._

 

Louis’ eyes filled with hot tears, pricking the space behind his lids when he squeezed his eyes shut. It hurt, and his chest ached, and regret hung heavy in the air around him. His mouth was dry and acidic tasting, and he gasped for air as he struggled not cry. Turning over, he dropped his phone onto the floor and shoved his face beneath his pillow. _I hate you I hate you I hate you,_ he thought. _I hate myself and I want to die._

***  
Morning came like a benediction, which was atypical for Louis. He was for once free of a hangover, having slept for more than twelve hours put-together. He dragged himself into the shower before dressing languidly. He plucked his discarded mobile from the floor, half-tempted to throw it against the wall just to further isolate himself.

He pulled up the hem of his shirt, sparing a glance for the dusting of bruises that littered his abdomen still.

He felt like the pain in his body could set the world on fire, thought that maybe he had merit outside of _ruin ruin ruin._ He ignored is mobile as it buzzed in his pocket, ignored everything but the painful press of his fingers against the bruises along his body. He felt horrible but exultant at the same time.

Pressing one finger against his blackened eye, he bit the inside of his cheek.

He was fine.

***  
“What will it take to cure me?”

“Cure you?”

“Fix me of being fucked up. Like of being sad and everything.”

“You know it’s not that easy.”

“Right, why is why I want to know what it’ll take to fix me.”

“I can’t say for sure,” Dr. Carmichael admitted. “It’s not that easy. Like I said.”

“Are you sure psychology is a science?”

“Are you sure you want to get better?”

Louis gaped, blinking rapidly. “Why wouldn’t I want that?”

“You seem a bit—stuck inside the notion that you’re depressed and will never be anything else.”

“I think I’ve always been depressed.”

“Okay. But does the idea of being _not-depressed_ scare you as much as I assume it does?”

Louis swallowed. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t?”

“I don’t know how to talk about it. I can’t—can’t even think about it.”

“It hasn’t crossed your mind?”

“Of course it has.”

“And?”

“I can’t do it.”

“What is that? That _it?”_

“I can’t—be different. I’m stuck this way.”

“And yet you came in today asking for a cure. To become un-stuck.”

“Something has to change somehow. I can’t keep—” Louis’ voice cracked. “I can’t keep ruining everything good. Something’s got to change or I really will kill myself.”

“That’s a very serious thing to say, Louis.”

“I’m not sure if I mean it or not.” Louis went quiet, struck dumb by his tempestuous thoughts. “I hate myself.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s the truth. I’m a waste of space with good hair.” He gulped in air, trying to choose his words carefully. “I wake up every day angry that I’m not dead. I think about dying all the time. It’s consuming me. It’s eating me up, just the mere idea of being not alive. If I could just think of some way to quit existing without all the hassle of doing it myself, it’d have been done it already. I can’t stop thinking about it. Death. Not even dying, just—death.”

“What does death mean for you?”

“I’d finally get to stop hating myself. An end from filling my days with bullshit just to pass the time. An end to the fucking horror.” He exhaled a sharp laugh. “And of being a hypocrite. What right do I have to complain about anything, really. I’ve got it easy compared to everyone else in the entire world. And still I complain.”

“Depression doesn’t care about your socioeconomic status, Louis. It really doesn’t discriminate at all.”

“That’s not encouraging.”

“I’m not here to lie to you.”

“It might help.”

“You know it wouldn’t.”

Louis sighed. “I have no patience. I have no patience for myself. I just don’t. It’s taken too long.”

Dr. Carmichael gave him a sympathetic look. “Too long meaning—your whole life?”

“One day was long enough. Eighteen years is killing me.”

***  
Louis left his appointment with a deep weariness settling into his lungs, along with a scrip for a higher medication dosage shoved into his pocket. He and his doctor had written out a lengthy _therapeutic agreement_ in which he promised not to kill himself without contacting her or going to a nearby A &E.

He momentarily wondered who he could drag along with him on his mad road to ruin—who might be willing to let him grab them by the throat and yank them along, strangling the life out of them just as every moment of his existence had strangled him.

He sneered into the rearview mirror and threw the car into drive, wincing at the tightness in his jaw and ribs. He enjoyed it as much as he reviled it, hating himself even more for the pain.

Louis shoved one hand into a pocket of his trousers, thumbing against the scalpel he had placed there unceremoniously. He had been carrying it around for days without comprehension, worrying and wondering just what he might eventually _do_ with it.

He doubted he was going to employ Lottie’s coping methods. His body didn’t contain enough blood to let him cut out and exorcise his demons. His blood was too busy clotting just beneath his skin, purpling into ever-darkening bruises, and he couldn’t afford to lose any more.

Instead he shoved it point-first into the seat beneath him, slicing swiftly into the leather. Startled by his own actions, he huffed out a bitter laugh. Tossing the scalpel onto the floor of the passenger side, he cut a sharp turn and sped forward.

Belatedly parking in front of Zayn’s house, he pulled out his mobile and thumbed through it.

“Hello?”

“Come outside.”

“I don’t respond well to orders.”

“Come outside, please, and I’ll be forever in your debt.”

“The sarcasm doesn’t suit you as much as you think it does.”

“Whatever you say. Come outside.”

“Why?”

“If you don’t come out here, I’m going to the military recruiter and joining the army.”

“No you’re not,” Zayn growled, instantly serious.

“Tell me, Zayn, should I sign up for the military?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Whyever not?”

“You’d commit friendly fire and get dumped into a pit of spikes and acid by your own men.”

“Would not.”

“Mate, hate to break it to you. But you would.” He sighed. “Hell, I’ve slept with and I still want to kill you on a good day.”

“Come outside.”

“Give me ten minutes and promise you’re not high.”

“I’m not high.”

“I’m not putting my life in your hands, fuckwit.”

“Get out here.”

Zayn hung up.

Louis retrieved the scalpel from the floor of the car, shoving the blade as deeply as it would go into the dash above the car’s control panel. He smiled for the first time all day.

He started at the glinting metal until he saw Zayn exit the front door of his house, rumpled leather jacket tight around his torso. Louis flicked his fringe out of his eyes, trying to remember the last time he had gotten his hair cut. It seemed like ages.

He watched Zayn light up a cigarette as he sidled to the passenger door, pulling open lazily. “If you’re drunk, I’m out of here.”

“One kind of self-sabotage at a time, dipshit.”

Zayn rolled his eyes and sat down, folding his angular body into the car. “Then lead the way to whatever hell-pit you find fitting.” He rolled down his window and ashed his cigarette. “Why include me in this misadventure anyway?”

“Because you need to be needed.”

Zayn growled, yanking the blade from the dashboard. “Don’t say that shit to me.”

“It’s true, I think.”

Zayn grunted, shoving the scalpel back into the dash. “He’s fine, you know. Since you didn’t ask.”

Louis snorted, pursing his lips. “Definitely true. Needy.”

“Whatever.” Zayn yanked the scalpel out again, casting Louis a surveying glance. “I could kill you with this, you know.”

“You could kill me with a lot of things.”

“S’pose.”

“But you won’t.”

“Why not?”

“You know why not.”

“Not sure he’d care at this point, mate.”

“He would,” Louis insisted. “But in favor of you not killing me, I’ll leave off.”

“Where are we going?”

“Tattoo shop. I’ve got a craving.”

“You also have a stick figure inked into your arm. I don’t think you’re a purveyor of good taste.”

“And yet you’re in his car with me. Who’s making bad decisions now?”

***

“You realize that’s atrocious, right?”

“You will never get me to apologize for this work of art,” Louis insisted.

“It’s—fuck, it’s like a scratchy tic-tac-toe,” Zayn countered. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“Dunno.”

“Is that how you make all decisions?”

“Pretty much.”

“You starting to think that’s maybe a bad plan?”

“Dunno.”

“Have you ever had sex in your car?”

Louis snorted. “It’d be easier to list places I haven’t had sex yet.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“And I’m pretty sure you’re propositioning a fuck in my car while trying to pretend you’re not.”

Zayn huffed but otherwise remained silent.

“How dignified.” Louis glanced at the scalpel he’d replaced in the rip in his dash. “Sometimes I’m surprised you haven’t murdered me yet.”

“I’d get caught. We can’t all have your luck.”

“Meaning?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t.”

“You can do whatever you want. Hell, you actually _do_ whatever you want. People fall at your feet like it’s nothing and you—let it happen.”

“I let it happen? By doing what exactly?”

“Fuck if I know. But you’re the only cocksucker I know who can get gay-bashed and walk away with just a fucking bruise.”

“You’re seriously going to blame me over that? The fact that I got fucking jumped?”

“The blame gets kind of…generalized,” Zayn replied slowly. “It’s not something I’m proud of, okay? I don’t like that I turn into a vindictive little shit around you.”

“Then why keep spending time with me?”

“You won’t leave me the fuck alone.”

“Grow a fucking spine, Malik. I’m not the root of your problems, so tell me no if you don’t want to _hang out._ It’s not that hard. Pussy.”

Zayn clenched his jaw. “Maybe I’m hoping some of it will rub off on me.”

“What, my unrelenting charm?”

“Your impermeability to criticism.”

Louis smirked. “I got that only through applied apathy.”

“Maybe you should teach me that bit.”

He shook his head sharply. “You don’t want it.”

“Might do.”

“Not unless you want the black eyes and burned bridges that go along with it.”

“Burned bridges?”

“Liam, case in point.”

“You’re an idiot. If you think you burned that you don’t know anything at all.”

“Sometimes I think that’s the only thing I know.”

***

The next few hours came in fits and starts: images of Zayn hovering above him carefully, thoughts of him below Louis’ trembling body, memories of them shattering into one another without remorse.

He wondered if he’d been roofied.

The phrase _maybe some of it will rub off on me_ ran through his mind during lucid periods, during short stop-gaps during which he realized everyone around him was splintering apart too. Zayn was slogging through some of the very same shit he was, even if he was doing it more gracefully than Louis was managing to.

_I can’t keep your seams together_ Louis either whispered or thought or screamed into the void. He couldn’t dovetail anything together nicely, couldn’t knit his sister’s wrists back closed, couldn’t spackle over the burns on Zayn’s arms. He couldn’t mend the cracked bones inside Liam’s chest and he couldn’t rid Harry of the stuttering rootlessness in his eyes.

Sometimes all he could do to keep the air from leaving his body for good. Sometimes it took all his efforts to remember to swallow, tongue heavy and foreign inside his mouth.

He remembered slapping Zayn across the face _per his request,_ which seemed silly and irresponsible—but then he saw the momentary look of stupid bliss that clouded Zayn’s eyes. And he wanted that. He needed to feel that for just one moment.

All the same, he knew he didn’t deserve it.

***

Louis woke with a sense of finality, his head draped over the toilet. Opening his eyes felt like ripping open a wound, so he shut them tightly. His throat felt acidic and raw when he swallowed.

“I hate you,” he said into the foul-smelling room.

“No you don’t,” Zayn muttered from behind him. Louis caught a vague flash of memory: of Zayn propping himself up in the tub surrounded by towels, intently if lazily watching him to make sure he didn’t choke on his own vomit.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Louis countered, eyes still closed.

“Oh. Who were you talking to, then?”

“Dunno. Myself. God. Whoever invented wine and amphetamines.”

“My heart’s doing this really weird shuddery thing,” Zayn agreed, shuffling slightly against the towels that surrounded him.

“You should probably stop mixing the uppers and downers. They’ll be the death of you.”

“Nah, that’d be you, mate,” he said lightly, smile apparent in his voice.

“I resent you.”

“Hey, I made sure you didn’t swallow your own tongue last night.”

“That’s why I resent you. God’s will be done and all that.”

“You just said you hated God.”

“Who am I to fight with his divine plan?”

“Which is.”

“Me overdosing and you throwing my corpse onto a skip so you don’t have to serve jail-time for involuntary manslaughter.”

“That doesn’t sound very divine.”

“I’m not very divine.”

“I know. Also, your mobile woke me up. Niall called, like, seven times or something. My brain hurts too much to really consider calling him back right now.” He set the phone down on the rim of the tub.

Louis groaned. “He keeps trying to get me to take Liam back.”

“Okay,” Zayn said slowly, as though guarding himself from hurt. “And?”

“I need to crawl in a hole and die.”

“Shut up.”

“No really. I won’t have to deal with failed social interactions in a hole.”

“But what if someone shared your hole?” Zayn coughed out a laugh. “Pretend that didn’t sound filthy.”

Louis groaned again. “You did that on purpose.”

“Of course I did.”

“You are a dirty boy, Malik.” Louis paused, considering something. “Did you goad me into punching you yesterday, or was that a fever dream?”

“You slapped me,” Zayn countered with a soft chuckle. “You can’t punch for shit, mate.”

“Is that what gets you off, then?”

“Not really. Just wanted to see what the appeal was.”

“And?”

“I don’t get it.”

Louis was silent for a few moments. “You really shouldn’t—let people do that to you when you’re fucked up.”

“I’m always fucked up.”

He ground out a response from deep in his chest. “You know what I mean. Drugged to the gills.”

“You’re in no place to give me a lecture here, hoss.”

“Don’t go John Wayne on me, please. I’m trying _not_ to vomit.”

“Fine, whatever.”

“And now I’m imagining you on a horse, or like, a bull, bucking up and down. It’s obscene, is what it is, Zayn. It’s vile.”

“Then stop it!” His voice contained actual anger, Louis noted.

“I can’t. It’s on a never-ending visual loop.” Louis sighed. “This would be a very undignified way to die.”

“What, your head dangling in the toilet? Child emperor dressed like a vagrant with sick in his hair?”

“With visions of you in a cowboy hat prancing through my head.”

“I do not prance. That’d be you, you campy arse.”

“You love my arse.”

“How is this conversation not making you vomit right now?”

“Talking is helping suppress my gag reflex, I think.”

“Is that why you never shut the fuck up? You’re trying not to puke all over everyone?”

“No.” Louis fell silent, stilling his breath to calm his gag reflex. “In case I die here, I need to tell you something.”

“Oh Christ,” Zayn whispered. “Let’s have it.”

“I think you’re the prettiest person I’ve ever seen.”

“Stop it.”

“Are you my imaginary friend?” Louis asked softly.

“Goddamn it, mate, stop.”

“I think you’re a manifestation of my deranged mind.”

“That’s actively insulting.”

“Oh.” He paused again. “It is?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry.” Louis sniffed. “I used to have an imaginary friend. But he didn’t look like you.”

“Dude, not the time.”

“I wrote letters to him, you know, like silly little-kid ones. With pictures and shit. I didn’t really realize until a while later how weird that was. To have an imaginary friend who didn’t even—what, like play with me? Who didn’t even talk to me. He just kind hung around in my head, and I drew him pictures. The nanny said she sent them to him, but I found some of them a while ago. After I realized I made him up. The letters, like—they were wrapped up with rubber bands like they were insignificant. Suppose they were.”

“Louis.”

“They got lost in the shuffle of a move a few years back. Probably that was for the best.”

“Hey. Hey, mate.”

Louis waved a hand vaguely, hoping his message came across. “My neck hurts. Just how many hickeys did you give me?”

“I didn’t. You told me to choke you and got mad when I didn’t put my weight behind it.”

“Yeah.”

“You shouldn’t do shit like that when you’re fucked up,” Zayn echoed.

“Then I’d never do anything, would I?”

**Author's Note:**

> I love and appreciate all your comments.
> 
> My tumblr: musiclily


End file.
